Noticing the return of Jarata with a huge smile plastered across his face, Kazlaf looked up from the science she was sitting at. “Everything okay over on the Chimera?” She asked him.

Jarata nodded, still smiling. “All fine, commander.”

Wondering what had made him smile that much, Kazlaf decided to ignore it. She was starting to mellow out and found herself beginning to like the pilot. He did impress her in the recent senior staff briefing in finding a solution they all agreed upon and one that wasn’t as extreme as hers. Though she and Lonar still stood by the idea, that was until what they knew now about the Sikarians.

  Kazlaf was interrupted by her thoughts as Ethav appeared from the aft hatch. “I’ve completed the diagnostics on the immersion shielding and the modified thrusters.” He took the station beside Kazlaf, “We’re all good to go, ma’am.”

Kazlaf shuddered inwards; she hated being called ‘ma’am’. Deciding she didn’t want to comment on it (for now), she thanked Ethav for the update before ordering Jarata to take them out. 

After following a similar route as the Chimera had taken to avoid detection, Kazlaf was pleased with how quickly they got into the water and were now submersed on their way to search for the Turei vessel. 

“Ethav, I want you to keep an eye on those shields; the moment something doesn’t look good, shout out,” She ordered. Looking down at Jarata, she could see the pilot was taking his time in concentrating on operating the Adelaide. Noticing he was biting on the edge of his tongue, Kazlaf smirked. Perhaps he wasn’t that bad, she thought. 

“Commander,” Jarata called out, “I think I’ve got the Turei ship on sensors.”

Looking at her own readings, she confirmed that the pilot was correct. “It seems like it’s resting on the edge of a precipice. It’s carefully hanging in the balance of the water.”

“I’ll reduce our speed to avoid it creating some sort of unbalance,” Jarata informed.

Agreeing with that idea, Kazlaf wanted to be able to search the Turei vessel without it being crushed beyond the precipice it rested on. “Ethav, we should start our scans of the ship, see if there’s anything we either beam aboard or somehow be able to interact with its systems.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ethav replied; again, the ‘ma’am’ made Kazlaf shudder inwards. 

After activating the forward illumination, Jarata called for Kazlaf and Ethav to look at what was ahead of them. Kazlaf looked up from her scans, and there for her own natural sensors to see was the Turei vessel. It looked like a see-saw, carefully balanced on either side. 

“There are no life signs,” Kazlaf shared, “And I would say from the decay of the hull, it’s been here for almost a year, maybe two.”

“Scans show that the Turei must have hit the sea at full speed before sinking to the seabed,” Ethav reported. “I’m detecting multiple hull breaches across the ventral side, plus there’s residual neutrinos. They match the same intensity of neutrinos we encountered via the spatial trajector.”

“Any clues to our Sikarians friends taking a peek?” Jarata asked.

It was a good question, as Kazlaf wanted to know that, too. 

“I’m detecting something that isn’t Turei in origin,” Ethav responded.

“What is it?” Kazlaf asked. She was intrigued if they had just found their treasure of evidence to prove the Sikarians were here.

“It appears to be a small computer device; it’s barely operational, but I would say it’s Sikarian in design,” Ethav reported. “It’s emitting a low-level subspace signal; at the rate of its power consumption, I would say it could barely send a signal beyond a kilometre now.”

  “Rubon, take us within one kilometre of the Turei vessel,” Kazlaf ordered. She was desperate to know more.

“Aye, ma’am, nice and easy,” Jarata replied, gently nudging them forward. A few seconds later, he announced they were within nine hundred and fifty meters of the ship.

Standing up, Kazlaf decided to work beside Ethav. “Anything, lieutenant?”

He nodded at her. “Lots, in fact. I’ve adjusted our transmitter to the same interlink frequencies as this device and have complete access to the Turei database.”

“How? That ship is dead!” Kazlaf asked.

“The Sikarian device is keeping it running, but I can confirm that there’s a computer virus lying within the ship’s mainframe. It’s in a dormant state. Also, the entire database has been copied and transmitted through that device,” Ethav said.

“I would say, is there any technology we can take, but I’m worried the transporters would disturb the ship’s resting place, and it will end up falling into that massive chasm,” Kazlaf said aloud as she looked out at the ship from the forward viewport. She turned to Ethav, “Lieutenant, can you download the Turei database without the virus?”

Ethav nodded. “If I delete the virus using our software, it will be easier to download everything the Turei had on their systems.”

“Do it. There may be other clues or information from their encounter with the Sikarian trajector,” Kazlaf said with a sense of victory in her tone. “Once we’ve got everything, Mister Jarata, take us back to the Constitution.”

“Aye, ma’am,” both men said in unison.

She sighed heavily and decided to ignore the ‘ma’am’ one more time. For now, Kazlaf was pleased with their results.